


One Does Not Simply Walk Into Mordor

by Sholio



Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Banter, Bonding, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Pop Culture, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 17:38:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16454411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: When Danny sprains his ankle doing vigilante stuff, Ward takes it upon himself to help with Danny's "catch up on all the pop culture" project.





	One Does Not Simply Walk Into Mordor

**Author's Note:**

> For this DELIGHTFUL prompt on tumblr: _maybe sometime pre-s2 ward becomes aware of danny's mission to catch up with pop culture and he introduces him to something *he* likes (which he can or cannot be embarrassed he enjoys however you like)? (up to you whether danny is also genuinely into it or not but appreciates the thought A LOT or both ;) )_
> 
> This is also for my "minor illness or injury" square on my h/c bingo card.

"Are you sure you'll be okay while I'm at the center? I could call in sick and stay home."

Danny pushed himself up on his elbows on the couch. "Colleen. I'm fine. Look, I have snacks." He gestured to the coffee table. "Books. Crutch if I need to go anywhere. Ice pack." He pointed to his ankle, propped on a pillow with a bag of frozen peas wrapped around it. "I have everything I need. I'm totally fine, and I'll continue to be totally fine for the next nine hours while you're at work."

"I know. I don't mean to fuss." She leaned over to kiss him. "It's just that it makes an impression, getting a text at 3 a.m. that you need to be picked up from the emergency room."

"I'm _really_ sorry about that. I forgot about the time and I didn't realize how late it was."

"It's fine. And you're fine." She brushed her hand over his hair, running her fingers through his now-shorter curls. "And you'll be back up to top form for fighting muggers and burglars soon ... but until then --"

"I stay on the couch and let it heal," Danny agreed. He snaked an arm around her neck and pulled her in for another kiss.

"Perfect," she agreed. "Mmm. Better let me up, I'm going to be late."

"How terrible." He nibbled her lips one last time and let her go. 

After she was gone, the dojo did seem awfully quiet. The screens of Danny's little overwatch center in the corner were playing quietly, but he forced himself not to look at them or even go near them to avoid the temptation of checking out the news -- even if it also meant avoiding Netflix and Youtube, his main sources for his "catch up on all the pop culture" project. Colleen was right, running around on a badly sprained ankle was just going to delay healing and risk getting himself or someone else hurt. _I can stand to lie here for a couple of days and get better. I can catch up on reading all the famous books I never got a chance to read._

He reached for the pile of library books on the coffee table.

A couple hours later, he'd decided that _Moby-Dick_ completely failed to live up to its promise of exciting whale-related action, Hemingway was a "maybe later," and _The Great Gatsby_ was ... just ... no, for a number of reasons. And he really, really wanted to get up and move around. Annoyingly, just hobbling to the bathroom left him sweaty and aching. But he didn't feel bad enough to _want_ to lie around. He just didn't really have a choice about it. This was really frustrating.

He tried meditating, and then he tried some exercises that he could do without moving his ankle (much). He was propped up in a yoga pose when his phone vibrated with an incoming text. Distraction! He eagerly reached for it.

**Ward:** _So, you standing me up or what?_

"Crud," Danny muttered. He'd completely forgotten he and Ward had a standing lunch date on ... whatever day of the week this was. He texted back: _Sorry, rain check. Something came up._

**Ward:** _Vitally important and ninja-related, I'm sure._

It was amazing how Ward's tone of dry sarcasm came through in his texts. _Actually, I sprained my ankle._

**Ward:** _Seriously? I thought you were like a mountain goat crossed with a gazelle. Did you eat yet?_

_No?_ Danny texted back.

**Ward:** _Great, I'll pick up takeout on the way down. This place is overpriced and too crowded anyway. Assuming we're still on for lunch._

_Yeah, sure,_ Danny texted back. _See you soon._

He'd added _The Catcher in the Rye_ to the "maybe later" pile and tried another few pages of _Moby-Dick_ (still no whales) when Ward tapped on the door and opened it. "Wow," he said, looking around. The interior of the dojo was a half-finished construction site, with draped plastic sheeting and secondhand furniture taking up an increasing amount of space. "I'm going to assume this is intentional and you didn't trash the place by accident."

"It's intentional. Come over next week and you can help us paint," Danny said, tossing _Moby-Dick_ onto the pile to go back to the library. "If I can stand up by then."

"What'd you do to yourself, anyway?" Ward asked as he put the takeout bags on the counter and began rummaging for dishes in their partly-renovated kitchen.

"Oh ... I fell off a fire escape. Well, more like jumped off." Ward turned around to give him a raised eyebrow. "I was chasing a burglar and jumped off the fourth-floor fire escape. Which normally would be no problem, I can easily jump from railing to railing. But there was a patch of ice and I slipped and the next thing I knew -- ow."

"Ow," Ward echoed with a wry expression. "So how long are you off it?"

"'Til I can walk on it, I guess. I'm redirecting my chi to my ankle to help it heal faster."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that."

"... And I'm really trying to take it easy, but ..." He spread his arms to indicate his surroundings. "I told Colleen I'd stay off the rooftops 'til I'm back to --"

"Parkouring around like a mountain goat?"

"-- full fighting strength. Which is the sensible thing, I'm not arguing that. I'm just _bored."_

Ward snorted. He moved a stack of books to lay out the plates and takeout boxes on the coffee table. "Yeah, I remember what it was like trying to keep you in bed when you were sick as a kid."

"Oh come on, I wasn't that bad!"

"Yeah?" Ward said as he plunked down on the end of the couch next to Danny's feet. "Remember that time you had flu or something, and you ended up like four blocks away in your pajamas because you'd decided you were going to run away? Which I know about because your parents called _my_ parents, and I had to watch Joy while they all ran around the entire neighborhood looking for you."

"I don't remember that at all."

"Well, you were like, five, so it's probably not a surprise."

Danny sensed that Ward was going to say something else but stopped himself, reaching for the box of mu shu pork instead. Although they'd never discussed it, Danny got the feeling they'd both realized, over the past few months, that in order to have any kind of relationship as adults, there were a lot of things from childhood that had to be let go of -- old resentments put away, old hurts forgiven. And they both _did_ want that, and there were times when he could see Ward visibly backing down, on the verge of bringing up something that was (in this case) probably along the lines of "I tried to run away when I was ten and nobody noticed" or something of that nature.

There were times when Danny really wished he could go back in time and retroactively kick Harold's ass. Maybe a lot of times.

"So," Ward said, switching subjects with an obvious grinding of mental gears, "you're basically a shut-in until you can ditch the crutches and go back to rooftop tap-dancing." He picked up one of the books and looked at the cover. " _Moby-Dick_? A little light reading there."

"Needs more whales."

"So quoth a hundred years of bored high school students. That's right, you're on some kind of kick to catch up on everything you missed while you were running around learning kung fu, right?"

"Well, as far as that's possible," Danny said. "I haven't tackled trigonometry yet."

"Mmhmm. You know, I think I just figured out a good way to keep you from going stir crazy and going out vigilante-ing on a broken ankle and getting murdered by Colleen." Ward hopped up off the couch and went over to Danny's computer nest in the corner. He took a look at the computer setup and then unplugged a laptop.

"Hey! It took me ages to set that up."

"You've got Netflix on here, right? Because if you don't, that's a crime in progress and as a vigilante, you're morally obligated to stop it."

"I do have Netflix." Danny carefully shifted his feet off the pillow and sat up. "What have you got in mind?"

Ward was hunting around the couch for an outlet for the laptop's power cord. "We are going to find out how many of the things you need to catch up on are streaming on Netflix, and watch them."

"Don't you have to get back to work?"

"It's Saturday," Ward said. "And while I do normally work on weekends, and was in fact planning on working this one, there's almost no one in the office and no one's going to notice if I don't show up. I think the company can get along just fine without me for a few hours."

Danny made a show of looking around. "Where is the real Ward and what did you do with him?"

"Ha ha." Ward dragged over a chair and waved a hand at the couch. "Get comfy. Okay, where do you want to start? What have you actually seen yet?"

"C'mon, I'm not a complete pop culture ignoramus. I watched a bunch of stuff when we were kids, like Transformers and whatever -- didn't you used to have Transformers sheets, come to think of it?"

"No comment. What else?" 

"Well, Colleen and I have been watching Star Trek. She really likes it. And I've seen all of Star Wars, including the new ones, and she just got me started on the Batman movies, which she thought I'd like but actually it feels a little too much like research to be entirely _fun_ \--"

"Right, it's a good thing I'm here, then. You need help, my friend. You need to watch something that isn't incredibly nerdy. Oh my God, look at these Netflix recommendations. Netflix is judging you."

"I don't think a guy who used to sleep on Transformers sheets can throw stones." Danny caught the crab rangoon that Ward threw at his head and popped it into his mouth. He settled back on the couch and reached for another. "So what did _you_ have in mind?"

"Let's start with _House of Cards."_

 

*

 

"Well, I see you're staying fed, at least," Colleen remarked, glancing across the detritus of takeout on the coffee table as she tossed her keys onto the counter.

"I'll clean that up, I swear." Danny rolled off the couch, snatched up a stack of takeout boxes and limped into the kitchen to kiss her. "How was your day at the center?"

"Busy. Hectic. How was your day at home?"

"Fun," Danny said.

"Really?"

"Yeah, Ward came over and we watched Netflix all day. We tried something about politics and terrible people, but I hated it, and then we switched to one about people killing zombies that Ward said he found very cathartic but I hated that too, so now we're watching a show about a drug dealer with terminal cancer. Ward thinks it's funny but I keep feeling guilty laughing at it."

"He's got you watching _Breaking Bad_? Good Lord," she said. "Did Ward warn you it gets pretty dark?"

"It can get _darker_?"

"Um. Maybe you should look up some spoilers."

"He's coming over tomorrow to watch more of it. I also made him promise that if I get tired of it, we can start watching the Harry Potter movies. I read the first three books last week and they're great. I like the kids, but Sirius is really awesome."

"Okay, you should _definitely_ look up spoilers for those."

"Oh come on!"

 

*

 

So the next few days were "takeout and Netflix" days. Danny fully expected Ward not to show up on Monday, because work, but he came over anyway. ("I haven't taken a vacation since I turned 18. I think the company can survive for a couple more days without me." "Seriously, where did you hide your pod?" "Oh, you get that reference now?" "Colleen and I had monster movie week a couple of months ago.")

They made it a couple of episodes into the second season of _Breaking Bad_ before Danny opted out. He was discovering that he didn't like nihilistic humor _at all_ ; he preferred cheerful shows about people working together. This was solidly confirmed when Ward tried him on _Bojack Horseman_ (no) and _Rick & Morty_ (no x1000) ... but the latter led to watching _Back to the Future_ , which Danny absolutely loved and Ward claimed to be watching only under duress ("I saw you grinning when Doc came back, don't lie to me, Ward"). They watched the first couple of Harry Potter movies, before Danny decided these would be a lot more fun with Colleen and without Ward's sarcastic running commentary.

The thing they finally hit on that they both liked was the Lord of the Rings movies. Danny had some passing awareness of the books -- he'd heard of them, at least -- but didn't really know what they were about beyond the fact that there was a ring in there somewhere, unless it was metaphorical. Which, as it turned out, it wasn't.

"So this must be pretty much like watching a documentary for you, right?"

"Shut up, Ward, the hobbits are talking."

So that led to trying to find similar things. They watched _Pirates of the Caribbean_ and Danny loved it ("Yeah, you had a pirate phase when you were about eight, didn't you?"), and _The Princess Bride_ ("I wouldn't think this would be your kind of thing at all, Ward." "It's a classic. You can't hate a classic.") and then they delved into the entire world of '80s action movies ... and then Danny had to acknowledge that he could walk just fine without crutches and needed to stop dragging Ward away from work to watch movies with him.

"It doesn't have to be the end of it, though, you know," he said a little bit shyly, as Ward plugged the laptop back into its place in the computer corner. "I mean, you said the second Terminator movie is better than the first one, right?"

"I still can't believe you made it to age 10 without watching those."

"They were too violent. Mom didn't want me watching R-rated stuff." He jerked his thoughts away from that particular track in a hurry. "Anyway ... now that I can get around again, maybe I could come over to your place one of these evenings? I bet you have a rad big-screen TV setup."

"First of all, nobody except you says 'rad' anymore, but yeah, I do have a wall panel TV ... that I don't think I've ever watched anything on, so I should probably do something about that."

"You mean we've been watching these on a 15-inch laptop when we could've been watching them huge on your wall? _Ward."_

"Fine," Ward said, with a general air of "I'm only giving in because you keep pestering me" that was 100% older sibling, "I'm not doing anything on Tuesday night, are you? We'll get something delivered and you can bring Colleen, it'll be fun."

"Colleen's actually got a thing all this week at the center and she'll be out late. Which maybe would be a good time for us to get through the rest of the Lethal Weapon movies, because she said she doesn't like those. And I can hit the rooftops for a few hours on my way home."

"If you jump off a roof and break your other ankle, swear to God I'm not coming over to keep you from climbing the walls this time."

And Danny thought about saying something like _You didn't have to this time_ , but decided not to. Because this was ... it was _good_ , it was better than good, it was one more little piece falling into place of the life he'd wanted during all these lonely years. Home, family, people to love, people to love him. And it was true that he didn't have everyone he wanted with him (he didn't know where Davos was, or Joy, and his parents' loss was still a deep ache that he thought he'd never really get over).

But this was good. Better than he ever would've dreamed he'd get when he first got back to New York and got the reception he'd gotten, that was for sure.

"Tuesday night," Danny said. "I'll bring the food this time."

"It's your turn for sure. Oh hey," Ward said on his way out the door, "next time you're on Youtube, type in 'taking the hobbits to Isengard'."

"What? Why?"

"Just do it," Ward said as the door swung shut, and called back, "Trust me!"

So he did, and he was still laughing when Colleen got home.

**Author's Note:**

> Danny loves _all_ the 2002-era memes. Colleen decides to strangle Ward the next time she sees him.


End file.
